No Pretty Pictures

At the shelter, Anita has lessons in Polish writing and Polish history. Anita assumes the directors are trying to replicate a school environment—if they are, they’re not doing a good job. She misses the hospital and the Sunday school lessons. In the shelter, a woman reads a Polish translation of Mark Twain’s American novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Anita shares a room with three older girls who talk about boys and their job prospects. Anita thinks the girls know she’s Jewish, but she proves them wrong by reciting Catholic prayers with them.

The girls tell scary stories, and Anita finds out that before she came to the shelter, a boy went skating on a frozen pound and fell through the thin ice. He died, and when Anita walks by the pond, she imagines his screams and dripping body.

Ryfka is the only other Jewish girl at the shelter. The children call her “Zydowka,” or “Jew,” and pick on her. They mess up her bed and throw her things out the window. Ryfka doesn’t react. She keeps a smile on her face and waits until it’s time for her to go to